Archives for June 9, 2018

Saturday’s ad is for Heileman’s Old Style Lager, from the 1950s. The ad shows a female bowler (look for it, you’ll see it) smiling and holding up a bottle of beer with a list of interesting reasons why “You’ll like the taste of Old Style Lager.” But I especially like the tagline at the bottom: “We don’t aim to make the most beer; only the best.” You don’t often see semicolons in ad copy, so that’s a bonus.

Today is also the birthday of Todd Ashman, who turns 58. Todd is originally from Santa Rosa, but spent a number of years brewing at Flossmoor Station near Chicago, and then short stints at Titletown Brewing in Green Bay, Wisconsin and with Brewers Supply Group. Several years ago, Todd moved back to California to take a position brewing with a then-new brewery in Truckee, Fifty Fifty Brewing, which he’s made into an amazing brewing powerhouse. Some health issues sidelined Todd for a time, and he’s moved back to Santa Rosa, but I did see him in Philly for World Beer Cup judging two years ago. But as I understand it, he’s back at FiftyFifty, which is great. Join me in wishing Todd a very happy birthday.

Peter Hoey, at left, from Sacramento Brewing, with Todd at the 2009 Northern California Homebrew Festival.

Today is the 60th birthday — the Big 6-O — of Ray Daniels. Ray is the former director of Craft Beer Marketing for the Brewers Association and today runs the Cicerone program, which he founded, to certify beer professionals, similar to sommeliers in the wine industry. He also founded the Real Ale Festival that used to take place annually in Chicago. And he’s one of my favorite people in the beer industry. Join me in wishing Ray a very happy birthday.

Julie Johson, from All About Beer, with Ray at Lagunitas during the Journalism Retreat when CBC was in San Francisco a few years ago.

On the floor at GABF with Bob Pease, from the Brewers Association, Mark Dorber, publican extraordinaire, and John Mallet, from Bell’s Brewery.

It’s hard not to love his Cicerone press photo.

Ray with his former assistant Sarah Huska at the Cicerone booth at CBC in Chicago several years ago.

Today is the birthday of Prosper Cocquyt (June 9, 1900-October 22, 1954). He was born in Astène, Belgium, near Ghent, and is primarily famous for being an aviator.

Prosper Cocquyt was called “the uncrowned king of the airline pilots.” Shortly after learning to fly, in his early twenties, joined Sabena World Airlines in its inception, and opened several routes for them, including to the Belgian Congo. He flew for them for over 25 years, and was even “the favorite pilot of the Belgian royal family and the personal pilot of the kings, Albert I and Leopold III.” Flying Zone has a lengthy biography of Cocquyt, and so does another website.

He was married to Elza Timmermans, and they had two children, a boy and a girl. It’s possible she was part of the Timmermans brewing family, but I’m not sure. But there’s another reason he’s included here.

When World War I broke out, Cocquyt was only fourteen, and he had to abandon going to school and find work. He was hired by a brewery run by a friend of his father as a mechanic. He distinguished himself by his knowledge of mechanics, and so impressed his boss, at sixteen, he was named chief mechanic, and even received a degree in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering at 21, before abandoning working in brewing to begin his career as a pilot. As far as I could tell, he never looked back.

Today is the 60th birthday — the Big 6-O — of brewing legend, Larry Bell, the iconoclastic owner of Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Last year, Larry was on a quest to attend every Chicago Cubs home game. This year, there’s the Bell’s 30th Anniversary. Bell’s doesn’t often get the credit it deserves for being the spark for craft beer in the midwest, having started in 1985, well before almost everybody else inside the two coasts. Join me in wishing Larry a very happy birthday.

Larry with Alan Sprints, from Hair of the Dog at the Full Sail Smoker during the Oregon Brewers Festival a few years ago.

Larry, with Ed and Carol Stoudt, from Stoudt Brewing, and Ken Allen, from Anderson Valley Brewing at the Craft Brewers Conference in Austin, Texas, in 2007.

Larry accepting the BA Recognition Award at CBC a few years back.

At OBF in 2008.

Three years ago in Portland for CBC, wearing the Belmont Crown for a Bell’s event there.